Bleuette - A Brief History
Bleuette was born in 1905 near the end of
the heyday of dollmaking, just after Emile
Jumeau and other makers of fine dolls in
France bonded together to form the company
SFBJ. Unlike the earlier French dolls,
Bleuette was created for interactive play,
and as a teaching tool. Bleuette's mission
was to help instruct little girls the fine
art of homemaking. from the very beginning,
Bleuette seemed to invite the young owners
into her world, where girls could learn to
become proper French ladies through play.
The brilliance of this approach to selling
Bleuette and La Semaine de Suzette to
French girls is demonstrated by the fact
that all 20,000 dolls ordered by the
publisher, Henri Gautier, in 1905 had been
sold before the first issue of the magazine
was published. Bleuette's new "mama" was
urged to begin sewing for her immediately.
There were more than 1,060 patterns
published over the fifty-five years Bleuette
was produced.
This remarkable doll survived two
devastating world wars and the resulting
deprivations at every level of life. Her
ever-changing wardrobe needs mirrored the
fluctuations of a rapidly changing society,
especially following these two wars. What's
more, unlikely many other dolls, Bleuette's
face and even her height, changed over the
fifty years of her production.
This first Bleuette from 1905 was known as “Premier Bleuette” or the “Bleuette Jumeau”. She was to have a porcelain head from a Jumeau head mold, fully jointed body of composition and wood, and she was to come dressed in a simple chemise. Premiere Bleuette has the sought after look of the Jumeau dolls with her heavily painted eyebrows, oily bisque, and precisely painted mouth. She is 27 centimeters in height and has four little teeth. She has threaded blue paperweight eyes and the wig is hand-wefted human hair.
The second Bleuette that was made using a German model owned by Fleischmann and Bloedel. Determining precise dating for her production as a Bleuette is difficult, but she appears to have been sold between 1905 and 1914.
In 1915, the Fleischmann mold was replaced with SFBJ mold 60, size 8/0. The Bleuettes with heads marked 60, with 8/0 on the nape of the neck, are characterized by very round cheeks, a smooth chin, slender eyebrows and finely painted eyelashes. The open mouths are deep red, with four little teeth showing.
The 301 head mold has a charm all its own. Because this head was used throughout the years leading up to World War II, and after the war, there is greater variation in the quality of bisque and the painting. The dolls produced in the years after the war often had very little paint tint of any kind on the cheeks. During that period of time, the paint used on the dolls was unstable due to poor ingredients and readily washed or wiped off, the porcelain. On the opposite end of the spectrum, many 301 Bleuette's produced in the early 1940's and 1950's are very ruddy colored bisque, with flaming red cheeks and bright red lips. The eyebrows are painted with multi-strokes, but remain fairly narrow. The 301 remains a favorite of collector's today. She has a saucy appearance and seems to head into any new adventure proposed by her "mother." In 1933 Bleuette grew two centimeters. The height was achieved by lengthening the upper thigh by one centimeter and slightly enlarging the head. She remained 29 centimeters until the late 1950's.
SFBJ 251 were produced from 1922-1933. These dolls have a more baby like quality than most Bleuettes and some appear to have short necks giving them a dumpy appearance. They have two teeth instead of four. From 1922-1933 the SFBJ 251 Paris 2 was 27 centimeters and had sleep eyes.
*Note: The above information was taken from the book Bleuette - The Doll and Her Wardrobe by Barbara Hilliker.
The Pale Bleuettes 1946-50
According to the excellent translation of Merlen's work, by Agnes Sura, the point was made about the suffering that the children of the war incurred. They developed rickets, became anemic, had the measles and Bleuette suffered from the restrictions posed by war as well. Since red glass uses gold, Agnes Sura assumed that the red paint had to have that asset as well. I expect they had other uses for gold after the war, so the paint on the Bleuettes was lacking. While Merlen found the complexions muddy and rough, I now find after closer scrutiny of the examples I have that their complexions are pale, but the bisque is smooth and well executed. They gave the Bleuettes a bit of color in the bisque giving them a tanned look, a healthy look, and at times a slightly Asian look, but not rough and not without its charm especially when you think of what they might have had to work with. While the blush is missing, they still found enough red paint to do the lips and more care was then given to the lips since the paint was dear.
Some say that the little girls washed the faces of Bleuette so often that the badly set paint often washed off. I never find that to be the case. Usually Bleuettes were so well played with that the layers of dirt that needs to be washed away before a doll can be displayed in a collection would have hidden the blush had it been there in the first place. I think a touch to the brow, a touch to the lower lashes, a dot or two on the nostrils and carefully painted lips are about all we can hope for with these 29cm Bleuettes from this time frame.
The eyes of the Bleuettes born during and after the war were smaller cuts as well. Her feet are thinner and the regular Bleuette shoes fall off unless her stockings are thick. The wigs suffered too, but that can be readily fixed today with all of the lush wigs that can now be bought from France.
At the beginning of the 1950s Bleuette recovered a part of her charm, according to Merlen, but she was on her way out with the final series being very ugly, again, according to Merlen.
* Note: article from Doris Lechler
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